Tok'ra Perspectives
by veridanna
Summary: A series of ficlets exploring the thoughts of some of the Tok'ra characters. They're not directly connected to each other, aside from all being from a Tok'ra's point of view. Characters: Delek, Anise Freya. (others to be added as I post more).
1. A Grief That Can't Be Spoken

Title: **A Grief That Can't Be Spoken**  
Characters: 99% Delek.  
Category: Gen.  
Rating: K.

Notes: This is the first of a series of ficlets exploring the thoughts of some of the Tok'ra characters. I have a total of 5 outlined at the moment. They're not directly connected to each other, aside from all being from a Tok'ra's point of view. They're not intended to contradict canon (TV episodes and the movies only) but I might miss a point somewhere.

* * *

He'd been expecting the news for months. In some ways, he been expecting it for years… for centuries.

Jolinar was dead.

A thousand memories whispered through his mind. Their first meeting between his then-host and hers; the way the sunlight flashed off her beautiful chestnut curls. The laughter that always danced in her honey-brown eyes. Passionate arguments that continued to passionate loving; the way she'd bring him to his knees and tease him until he said she was right just so she'd _not stop_. The serious disagreements, and the way they would calmly, logically, rip each other's points to shreds until they found a common ground… somewhere.

Escaping an exploding ha'tak together. Parting for separate assignments. The way she'd fuss over her things when they moved to a new base – despite the room being identical in size and shape to their old one, Jolinar just had to make each one just a little different. Their last years together, their hosts too old for active assignments: they ran the base together. Their very last night, when she sat there brushing out her now-white curls and looked up at him with the same beautiful smile he'd fallen in love with nearly four centuries before.

Her next host had been a child; he had to let her go. When she had grown up and he too had a new host, the attraction wasn't there between them anymore. The love never died. It was just tucked away in their memories, the flames banked into the warmth of a friendship far stronger than that word implies. For a thousand years, they shared _kalac'pri_ , the soul-love of a symbiote unaccompanied by physical love shared with the host.

And now his Jolinar was gone. Beautiful, passionate, clever… and reckless. He knew, of course, that she had been mated again, with Lantash and his present host. He had been happy for her, happy she had found such a love again in the ever shifting dance of possibilities. But he had to ask; he had to know how she was lost.

Garshaw didn't want to tell him how Jolinar had died. He had insisted and almost wished he hadn't. He found it hard to imagine a worse ending for her than to be trapped and caged. His Jolinar had always hated cages, hated to be confined, constrained. And the Tau'ri… to strip her of her ability to defend herself and then fail to protect her… he couldn't recall when he had last been so angry, so disgusted. Such people _could not_ be trusted. All the words in the galaxy could not change what their actions revealed.

He knew he was over reacting. He tried to be fair, to call it prejudice and get past it. Sometimes he succeeded, sometimes he failed, but Delek _tried_.


	2. The Tigers Come At Night

Title: **The Tigers Come At Night  
** Characters: 99% Anise|Freya.  
Category: Gen.  
Rating: K.

Notes: This is the second of my Tok'ra ficlets. I've still got 5 total planned, but it might be a while before the next one goes up.

* * *

When she was a day late, no one thought much of it. A second day passed and some of them joked about how she tended to lose track of time. A third day passed and someone was sent to check.

She wasn't there.

No one knew where she'd gone, nor why. No one had anywhere to start looking. Days turned into weeks, then months, then years. She was lost.

When she was carried her back through the chaapa'ai, shivering, silent and far from sane, none of them gave up on her. Through the weeks before she spoke a single word, there was always someone by her side. When she woke from nightmares they all understood far too well, there was always someone to hold her through the hours before she slept again.

Thoran had found her imprisoned beneath one of Ra's temples, tortured, killed and revived over and over until both host and symbiote's minds shattered into a thousand shards. But punishing her for daring to be tok Ra had eventually bored even the Supreme System Lord until he had forgotten her for long enough that Thoran had dared to go near her.

It was years before she spoke more than the barest, mundane words. But, as it had ever been, the puzzles in their laboratories drew her haltingly from her shell. She knew their work, and in piecing together devices that were broken, she slowly pieced together enough of herself to resume _her_ work. It took another year complete before her host re-emerged and several more before her unnatural timidity receded.

If Anise's manner never ceased to be difficult, her colleagues understood. If Freya continued to ground herself in her birth world's style of clothing, no Tok'ra judged her ill for it.

They would all watch over her in the night.


End file.
